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BAE pension strike threat 'easing'BBC
News, March 17, 2003
The union at the centre
of a pensions dispute with BAE systems claims it is winning concessions
from Britain's biggest arms maker. The
Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) told BBC News Online that BAE
had agreed to give a host of assurances as to the future of the employee
pension scheme. In
addition, the company had agreed to make up a substantial proportion of
the estimated £2.3bn black hole in the company pension scheme. However,
the TGWU added that they had not gotten everything they wanted and as a
result the threat of industrial action, although diminishing, remained. Action
threat BAE
is in the process of conducting a full pensions review and back in
February drafted a series of proposals to ensure that the company pension
scheme had enough funds to meet future liabilities. In
return for keeping final salary benefits, existing scheme members were
told they would have to up their contribution levels. The
move would affect seven pension schemes and 57,000 workers at 63 UK sites.
The
TGWU claimed that on average employees faced having to pay up to £20 a
week more into their pension and threatened industrial action. Holidays The
TGWU was furious that its members are being asked to up contributions to
plug a black hole which can be partly blamed on the company having taken a
series of contribution holidays during the 1990s when stock market
performance was strong. The
union asked BAE to reconsider the contribution increase and to give a
series of assurances that members would reap the benefit of future
schemes' surpluses first rather than the company. In
response, BAE have assured the union that it intends to keep the final
salary scheme and that if the pension scheme moves into surplus over the
next three years members could see their contribution levels cutback. In
addition, a TGWU spokesperson told BBC News Online that BAE has offered to
make up 60% of the pension shortfall, leaving increased member
contributions to make up the rest. This
is a significant move as the company originally wanted members to make up
half the shortfall in the fund. "The
company has made some important concessions but they still have much
further to go. I would say that industrial action is now further away than
when the pension review began but it is still a possibility, " TGWU
spokesperson said. The
unions will now report back to their members in Royal Ordnance and BAE and
further negotiations will follow. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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